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For their role in the 2007 stabbing murder of 16-year-old Lorenzo Carachure, Eastside gang members Bryan Medinilla, Ricardo Nava, and Raul Diaz were sentenced today in Santa Barbara Superior Court to 26 years to life, 15 years to life, and 15 years to life in prison, respectively. Medinilla had been convicted of first degree murder in connection with the stabbing; Nava and Diaz were found guilty of second degree murder.

They were also sentenced to three years each for being members of a criminal street gang, but that sentence will overlap the others. Nava’s 15-year sentence, however, will be tacked to the end of a 19-year prison term he’ll serve after being previously convicted of attempted murder in a separate gang-related attack.

Before Judge Clifford Anderson handed down the sentences, he heard statements from the three defense attorneys who argued their clients didn’t receive a fair trial and there hadn’t been sufficient evidence presented against them for the convictions to stand. They said the defendants deserved a new trial. (James Crowder, representing Medinilla, asked that Medinilla’s conviction be reduced to second degree murder if a new trial wasn’t possible.)

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In virtually identical statements, the lawyers said evidence presented against Ruben Mize — who was sentenced two weeks ago to 60 years to life in prison for committing a string of brazen beatings and stabbings, including Carachure’s murder — influenced jurors as they decided the fate of Medinilla, Nava, and Diaz. In fact, they tried a number of times to separate their cases from Mize’s.

The attorneys said that during the course of the murder trial (the second, after the first ended in a hung jury) their clients — while Mize’s friends and fellow gang members — were unfairly linked to the notorious Eastsider’s own misdeeds. They called it a “spillover effect.” Said Crowder of the jury’s responsibility to compartmentalize the District Attorney’s arguments against each man: “It was impossible for any human being to keep the defendants separate.” By the end of the proceedings, Mize and Medinilla came off as most directly responsible for Carachure’s death.

All three lawyers also stressed that the testimony relayed by witnesses on the stand couldn’t be trusted, as the witnesses had either shown a propensity to lie or had taken plea deals with the prosecution.

Deputy District Attorney Hans Almgren countered that all of the statements provided during the four-week-long trial were corroborated by evidence, both forensic and circumstantial. He called the “spillover effect” theory “absurd,” explaining the jury was instructed nearly two dozen times on the proper ways to consider and weigh evidence.

Almgren also pointed to the fact that the jury chose to not convict the three on attempted murder charges (Carachure’s friends were attacked alongside him when he was killed), indicating jury members were clear on the law and gave the case careful consideration.

Judge Anderson sided with Almgren and denied the motions for a retrial. At the end of the hearing, he spoke to Medinilla, Nava, and Diaz as a group: “Gentlemen, I hope each of you is able to come to terms with what happened, and it ultimately changes your direction down the road and allows you to make something out of your lives. I wish you luck.”

True Bill. It's pretty pathetic that he is being sentenced and flashes the sign during that... but then again, being a part of the Eastside gang is what helped get him there so him flashing that is a reminder... not that his "homies" will take it as such, I doubt seeing these guys screw up so badly and get punished for it will deter many of them from continuing with the gang activities. So pathetic.

I wonder how long Medinilla will continue to think it's fun! The trip that ended here for these young men started back in elementary school. A main way the process won't be repeated is if children are not only taught different paths - and I think they all were, that the teachers tried - but, especially, if they are taught that such sentences in prison can and will happen to them.

Pathetic? 15 years old boy pathetic?Let me tell you who’s real pathetic:Hans Amgren (DA) free Jose Ovando Herrera after commit a crime to 75 years old “American Citizen”, after ovando said in court “I Stabbing 6 times and try to kill the fool” (Mize case), after ovando said in court “I drive hommies to stubbing and try to kill Big Ruddy” who’s the pathetic?? Hans let this punk gangster free!! We have longgggg list pathetic people in system. Don’t call that to 15 years old boy…come on

The 15 year old is very pathetic, but they all are... killing just to kill, it's sad that they think that's what life is about, especially in a place like this where there are opportunities for anyone if they are willing to work for it. Yes, the boy is pathetic because he is still flashing that sign, even after all this.

Only 15 years? Terrorists and thugs like these two deserve life in prison, as in real life sentences, so they die still behind bars.Why are we going soft on these terrorists? Probably because they're not Muslim.

The sad thing here is that the reason these kids dont "get it" is because their brains havent even finished developing and not only tht but the fact that their brains have been programed to feel and think this way by their enviorments at home. Knowing the childhood history of all these defendents, puts me at a stand still when attempting to judge them. These kids were also victims at one point.. And they will continue to be. It is clear to me and others that know them personaly that these kids even had signs of mental illness for many years prior to these horrific incidents. I can bet my life that if any of these boys had a brain scan;that it would really give all of us a better understanding of why they think and do what they do. Working with at risk kids is a very sobering experience. EARLY intervention and medical/mental health intervention is vital and key for these kinds of youth. The old saying goes "that it takes an entire village to raise just one child" well what if these kids had noone to scaffold them? What if their village was non existant? These kids have noone! The handful of ppl they do have are at times uneducated and suffering with their own atrocities. We can all agree that children cannot and should not fend for themselves, yet these kids are out on our streets doing just that. Ppl can say well some do have good parents and are not living in an unstable home.. But until u walk into that home and spend months observing and witnessing these kinds of families.. It all falls into place and it all makes perfect sense.. U realize how sad the siituation really is... And while we cant ALWAYS take these kids out of their situations we can all do our part and help them cope with it. BE A MENTOR DO UR PART.. No theyre not our biological children but we are their VILLAGE <3

His photo says it all. They just don't get it. The gang population in Ca. is out of hand and growing at an alarming rate. Prison is not much of a deterent but it does take them off the street. It helps, that's it. Their is a cultural state of mind in these folks that we cannot get our minds around.The VAST majority of these gangs are Hispanic, followed by Black. That leaves MAYBE 5% of the gangs spread out among Asian and White. So we know where the problem is and it is draining our Police, Prisons, schools and emergency rooms. When these thugs stab or shoot each other where do you think they are brought?? Emergency room!! Then jail, then court then prison then out then.........................................................You got the picture.

Azucar is right. I would also suggest that given the high amount of alcoholism in gang culture (as least from what I've seen, among the males)I wonder how many of these kids are born with fetal alcohol syndrome?

It's a whole cycle. At one of my former jobs, I worked with a woman (she was one of the janitors) who was from Mexico, a very nice woman, (her husband and older daughter very nice people as well) and by her own admission, in the country illegally. She had a ten-year-old son who unlike the other three family members I had met (there were six children in all) not only spoke English, but spoke it with an American accent. He too was a nice kid.

Fast forward two years: His mother comes up to me and says with a resigned look in her eyes that he's starting to hang out with gang types and there's nothing she can do to stop it. I believed her. In this case, she was not in denial about the situation, but clearly the cycle of overcrowding, parents who were at work all day, and permissive American attitudes about child raising along with the politically correct mantra of "They do the work Americans won't do" which is just a disingenuous argument from Big Business Republicans to justify the exploitation of cheap labor as well as a way for faux-Leftists to justify their superficial liberalism or their racial guilt had consumed yet another kid who in this case clearly was *not* the product of a gang-cultured home.

I don't expect Lois Capps, Helene Schneider, Jerry Brown, or the few token Republicans who hold office locally (and it was G.W. Bush who I actually heard use the "they do the work..." argument) to either A: Get the big picture; or B: Have the guts to offend the open border interests in both political parties.

I have heard that the definition of insanity is the action of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, so using that example, we need to not only build more prisons for the upcoming crop of future gangbangers, but more insane asylums by those in power whose lack of understanding contributes to this tragedy whose condition has a name in Spanish "la cadena perpetua" (the endless cycle, or literally "the endless chain".

Can't build anymore prisons, and the prisons we do have, can't hold anymore. As a matter of fact, 36,000 inmates have to be released by order of the court because of the overcrowding, so we have to do something. Sorry Sanity Now, but eliminating all hispanics is just not possible either, so lets just get our thinking caps on and think.